


charity

by LovelyLessie



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Lyrium Withdrawal, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 16:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8292256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLessie/pseuds/LovelyLessie
Summary: Anders is summoned to help a sick man in danger - a man who was once a Templar.





	

“Are you the healer?” asks a thin, nervous voice from the door, and Anders lifts his head.

The speaker is a slender, mousy woman, not much more than a girl, leaning around the edge of the door and watching him with wide eyes.

“Lirene says there’s a healer what helps the poor who can’t afford none other,” she says, wringing her hands. “Are you him?”

“Yes,” he says, rising from his seat, and crosses the room to her in long strides. “Are you ill? Injured?”

“No, serah,” she says quickly, shaking her head. “Not me. There’s a man, an old beggar what lives down here, so much as he lives anywhere, I think he might be dying. My friend and me, we saw him - I don’t know. He fainted and then went all funny. We wanted to bring him to see you straight away but we couldn’t carry him, he was twitchin’ and thrashin’ something awful.”

“Take me to him,” Anders says, grabbing his bag from the bench by the door. “Quickly!”

The girl nods and turns to set off at a full-tilt sprint down the narrow passageway. Grabbing hold of his coat, Anders follows.

It’s hardly a few minutes to reach the place, where another young girl is standing over a man sprawled out on the ground. He looks pale-faced and sickly, his eyes half-open, his whole body convulsing in sporadic jerks. “Shit,” Anders says, drawing a breath through his teeth.

“You’re the healer?” asks the girl standing guard. “Can you help him?”

“Of course,” Anders says with a confidence he doesn’t feel, and approaches.

The moment he gets within reach of the man, something feels wrong; his chest tightens and he feels sharp energy prickling behind his eyes. He clenches his fists and thinks, no, not now, but he can’t ignore the feeling, not when Justice lurking in his chest can recognize this man as a Templar.

Even so, he leans in and rests his hands on the man’s shoulders, reaching in with the faintest trace of his magic and willing the spasming muscles to relax. The man stills.

“Can you hear me?” Anders asks gently, tipping the man’s face towards him.

The man blinks and groans, struggling to focus his eyes. “Who,” he mumbles in a slurred voice. “What are you?”

He knows, Anders and Justice think as one, and for a moment he’s frozen, caught between his own urge to run and Justice’s desire to strike out at the man. He does neither, just takes a deep breath and lets it out. “I’m a healer,” he says. “I’m here to help you.”

“Apostate?” the man says, half snarling, and pulls himself away, struggling to sit up through obvious weakness. “What do you want from me? Why are you here? You’ve come to kill me, have you, kill me on behalf of your brothers and sisters - don’t touch me!”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Anders says through his teeth, though he’s beginning to want to. “These girls said you collapsed.”

“You want to heal me?” the man asks, and makes a horrible rasping sound that might be a laugh. “Take your talents somewhere useful, you can’t help me.”

“You said you could,” one of the girls says, the slight nervous one who came to find him.

“I’ll try,” Anders says, “if he’ll let me, but if he’s determined to refuse I don’t suppose I’ll be disappointed!”

The man laughs again and it becomes a wheezing cough as he struggles to catch his breath. He’s shaking, hard, and Anders thinks for a moment it might be another seizure, but it looks more like a tremor than anything else.  
“Go back where you came from, apostate,” he rasps when he’s gotten his breath back. “This city’s no place for a man like you.”

“You’re telling me to run?” Anders asks, and smiles wryly. “That’s…not what I expected.”

The man sneers. “You don’t think I got this way agreeing with the Chantry,” he says bitterly. “You’ll serve your purpose better where people want it, and it won’t be me who puts you in the Gallows after all the Order’s done for me. You want to do me any good, get out and don’t undo what little I’ve done!”

“You’re a traitor,” Anders says, incredulously. “So that means…”

He reaches into his bag, and he sees the man perk up, his eyes widening. They’re huge and night-dark, dilated well beyond the demands of the dim light of the Undercity.

“Girls, you should go,” Anders says quietly. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Yes, ser,” says the mousy girl, and they both scurry off around the corner and vanish.

“You’re in good with smugglers?” the man wheezes, leaning forward. “You’ve got a little something for a traitor down on his luck?”

“Hold still,” Anders says sharply, and pulls out a flask of lyrium solution. “And put your head back.”

The man, instead, reaches out, trying to grab the flask.

“Blighter!” Anders curses, pulling it away. “Not all of it, you stupid bastard!”

“I need it,” the man says, sitting back on his haunches. “I need it! Give it to me!”

“Sit still, then,” Anders tries to say.

“Give it to me!” the man shouts, and launches himself at Anders, one hand grabbing at his coat and the other scrabbling for the flask.

“Get off!” Anders bellows, and hears the shift in his voice as he pushes the man back. He staggers and falls against the dirty wall, looking dazed as he slides to the ground.

“Knew you was more than a mage,” he whispers in a low voice. “I can still feel it.”

“Try a stunt like that again and you’ll wash up in the harbor,” Anders says coldly.

“It hurts,” the man whines, his voice strained. “Maker have mercy on me, you don’t know what it’s like. It hurts.”

Anders takes a deep breath through his teeth and lets it out slowly. “I know it hurts,” he says. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Please,” says the man, desperately.

“Hold still and tip your head back,” Anders says again, and this time he obliges. Anders pulls the stopper from the flask and crouches down beside the man to pour just a few drops of the elixir into his mouth.

The change is almost instantaneous; the man’s shoulders relax and his hands stop shaking, and the strained and slightly manic look disappears from his face leaving him looking tired more than anything else.

A long moment passes before he opens his eyes and says, his voice a little stronger, “I haven’t got coin to pay you with. It’s all gone to the smugglers.”

“I know,” Anders says. “You don’t need to pay me.”

“It doesn’t come cheap,” the man says. “And it doesn’t last long.”

“No,” Anders agrees, and climbs to his feet. “It doesn’t.”

“Kirkwall doesn’t deserve the likes of you,” the man says.

Anders raises an eyebrow and gives him a faint smile. “Maybe not,” he agrees, “but it needs me.”

The man shakes his head. “Watch yourself,” he says. “You should get out of this city before it swallows you whole. The Gallows won’t take you, they’ll only hang you.”

“I’ll be alright,” Anders says.

“Stupid,” the man replies.

Anders considers saying something equally cold, but thinks better of it. “If you look for the lit lantern, you’ll find my clinic,” he says instead. “When it gets bad again, come find me there and I’ll see what I can give you. Preferably, before you collapse in fits on the street again.”

With that he turns to go, leaving the man still sitting on the ground behind him. “You won’t be able to help,” he calls, but Anders doesn’t respond.


End file.
